Academic Advisors’ Awareness, Knowledge, and Skills Necessary to Support Undocumented Students at Nonurban Community Colleges in New York State

Undocumented students face a multitude of barriers to access higher education. Academic advisors can support these students as they pursue their college degrees. This hermeneutic phenomenological study used the Undocumented/ DACAmented Status Competency (UDSC) tripartite framework to learn about the awareness, knowledge, and skills of academic advisors supporting undocumented students at nonurban community colleges in New York State. Data were collected using semi-structured virtual interviews via Zoom. Participants included six professional academic advisors at five nonurban community colleges in New York. The findings from this study suggest that most academic advisors can identify some undocumented student challenges, however they do not have a clear awareness of the many challenges and barriers undocumented students face. Most academic advisors interviewed had very limited to no knowledge about undocumented student policy at the federal, state, and institutional level. An additional finding shows that most academic advisors are unsure if they have supported an undocumented student. From the findings, it is apparent that most academic advisors have not received training specific to undocumented students at their current institution, therefore my proposed solution is to provide academic advisors with training that will help them to develop the awareness, knowledge and skills to best support undocumented students. This training will provide academic advisors with opportunities to interact with undocumented students, learn about undocumented student policies, and identify steps they can take to make their campus more friendly to the undocumented population. Keywords: undocumented students, academic advisors, training

Grantor dc:publisher

Creighton University

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Moya, Gaby Patricia

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Georges, Leah

• Academic Advisors
• Training
• Undocumented Students

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is retained by the Author. A non-exclusive distribution right is granted to Creighton University and to ProQuest following the publishing model selected above.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Repository record dc:identifier.uri

https://cdr.creighton.edu/handle/10504/154014

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:cdr.creighton.edu:10504/154014